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<title data-react-helmet="true">Explaining Globs | gulp.js</title>

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href="#explaining-globs" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Explaining Globs</h1><p>A glob is a string of literal and/or wildcard characters used to match filepaths. Globbing is the act of locating files on a filesystem using one or more globs.</p><p>The <code>src()</code> method expects a single glob string or an array of globs to determine which files your pipeline will operate on. At least one match must be found for your glob(s) otherwise <code>src()</code> will error. When an array of globs is used, they are matched in array order - especially useful for negative globs.</p><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="segments-and-separators"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#segments-and-separators" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Segments and separators</h2><p>A segment is everything between separators. The separator in a glob is always the <code>/</code> character - regardless of the operating system - even in Windows where the path separator is <code>\\</code>.  In a glob, <code>\\</code> is reserved as the escape character.</p><p>Here, the * is escaped, so it is treated as a literal instead of a wildcard character.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;glob_with_uncommon_\\*_character.js&#x27;</span></div></div></div></div></div><p>Avoid using Node&#x27;s <code>path</code> methods, like <code>path.join</code>, to create globs. On Windows, it produces an invalid glob because Node uses <code>\\</code> as the separator. Also avoid the <code>__dirname</code> global, <code>__filename</code> global, or <code>process.cwd()</code> for the same reasons.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token keyword" style="color:rgb(86, 156, 214)">const</span><span class="token plain"> invalidGlob </span><span class="token operator" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">=</span><span class="token plain"> path</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">.</span><span class="token method function property-access" style="color:rgb(220, 220, 170)">join</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">(</span><span class="token plain">__dirname</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">,</span><span class="token plain"> </span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;src/*.js&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">)</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">;</span></div></div></div></div></div><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="special-character--single-star"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#special-character--single-star" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Special character: * (single-star)</h2><p>Matches any amount - including none - of characters within a single segment. Useful for globbing files within one directory.</p><p>This glob will match files like <code>index.js</code>, but not files like <code>scripts/index.js</code> or <code>scripts/nested/index.js</code></p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;*.js&#x27;</span></div></div></div></div></div><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="special-character--double-star"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#special-character--double-star" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Special character: ** (double-star)</h2><p>Matches any amount - including none - of characters across segments. Useful for globbing files in nested directories. Make sure to appropriately restrict your double-star globs, to avoid matching large directories unnecessarily.</p><p>Here, the glob is appropriately restricted to the <code>scripts/</code> directory. It will match files like <code>scripts/index.js</code>, <code>scripts/nested/index.js</code>, and <code>scripts/nested/twice/index.js</code>.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;scripts/**/*.js&#x27;</span></div></div></div></div></div><small>In the previous example, if `scripts/` wasn&#x27;t prefixed, all dependencies in `node_modules` or other directories would also be matched.</small><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="special-character--negative"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#special-character--negative" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Special character: ! (negative)</h2><p>Since globs are matched in array order, a negative glob must follow at least one non-negative glob in an array. The first finds a set of matches, then the negative glob removes a portion of those results. When excluding all files within a directory, you must add <code>/**</code> after the directory name, which the globbing library optimizes internally.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">[</span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;scripts/**/*.js&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">,</span><span class="token plain"> </span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;!scripts/vendor/**&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">]</span></div></div></div></div></div><p>If any non-negative globs follow a negative, nothing will be removed from the later set of matches.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">[</span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;scripts/**/*.js&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">,</span><span class="token plain"> </span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;!scripts/vendor/**&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">,</span><span class="token plain"> </span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;scripts/vendor/react.js&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">]</span></div></div></div></div></div><p>Negative globs can be used as an alternative for restricting double-star globs.</p><div class="mdxCodeBlock_iHAB"><div class="codeBlockContent_32p_"><button type="button" aria-label="Copy code to clipboard" class="copyButton_1BYj">Copy</button><div tabindex="0" class="prism-code language-js codeBlock_19pQ"><div class="codeBlockLines_2n9r" style="color:#9CDCFE;background-color:#1E1E1E"><div class="token-line" style="color:#9CDCFE"><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">[</span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;**/*.js&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">,</span><span class="token plain"> </span><span class="token string" style="color:rgb(206, 145, 120)">&#x27;!node_modules/**&#x27;</span><span class="token punctuation" style="color:rgb(212, 212, 212)">]</span></div></div></div></div></div><small>In the previous example, if the negative glob was `!node_modules/**/*.js`, the globbing library wouldn&#x27;t optimize the negation and every match would have to be compared against the negative glob, which would be extremely slow. To ignore all files in a directory, only add the `/**` glob after the directory name.</small><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="overlapping-globs"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#overlapping-globs" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Overlapping globs</h2><p>Two or more globs that (un)intentionally match the same file are considered overlapping. When overlapping globs are used within a single <code>src()</code>, gulp does its best to remove the duplicates, but doesn&#x27;t attempt to deduplicate across separate <code>src()</code> calls.</p><h2><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="anchor enhancedAnchor_ZqCz" id="advanced-resources"></a><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" class="hash-link" href="#advanced-resources" title="Direct link to heading">#</a>Advanced resources</h2><p>Most of what you&#x27;ll need to work with globs in gulp is covered here. If you&#x27;d like to get more in depth, here are a few resources.</p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/micromatch/micromatch">Micromatch Documentation</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/isaacs/node-glob#glob-primer">node-glob&#x27;s Glob Primer</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/begin/globbing#what-is-globbing">Begin&#x27;s Globbing Documentation</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)">Wikipedia&#x27;s Glob Page</a></li></ul></div></article><div class="margin-vert--lg"><nav class="pagination-nav"><div class="pagination-nav__item"><a class="pagination-nav__link" href="/docs/en/getting-started/working-with-files"><div class="pagination-nav__link--sublabel">Previous</div><div class="pagination-nav__link--label">« Working with Files</div></a></div><div class="pagination-nav__item pagination-nav__item--next"><a class="pagination-nav__link" href="/docs/en/getting-started/using-plugins"><div class="pagination-nav__link--sublabel">Next</div><div class="pagination-nav__link--label">Using Plugins »</div></a></div></nav></div></div></div><div class="col col--3"><div class="tableOfContents_TbNY"><ul class="contents contents__left-border"><li><a href="#segments-and-separators" class="contents__link">Segments and separators</a></li><li><a href="#special-character--single-star" class="contents__link">Special character: * (single-star)</a></li><li><a href="#special-character--double-star" class="contents__link">Special character: ** (double-star)</a></li><li><a href="#special-character--negative" class="contents__link">Special character: ! (negative)</a></li><li><a href="#overlapping-globs" class="contents__link">Overlapping globs</a></li><li><a href="#advanced-resources" class="contents__link">Advanced resources</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div></main></div></div><footer class="footer"><div class="container"><div class="row footer__links"><div class="col footer__col"><ul class="footer__items"><li class="footer__item"><img src="/img/gulp-white-logo.svg" alt="gulp" href="/"></li></ul></div><div class="col footer__col"><h4 class="footer__title">Docs</h4><ul class="footer__items"><li class="footer__item"><a class="footer__link-item" href="/docs/en/getting-started/quick-start">Getting Started</a></li><li class="footer__item"><a class="footer__link-item" href="/docs/en/api/concepts">API</a></li></ul></div><div class="col footer__col"><h4 class="footer__title">Community</h4><ul class="footer__items"><li class="footer__item"><a class="footer__link-item" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp">GitHub</a></li><li class="footer__item"><a class="footer__link-item" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/gulp">Stack Overflow</a></li><li class="footer__item"><a class="footer__link-item" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://twitter.com/gulpjs">Twitter</a></li></ul></div></div><div class="text--center"><div></div></div></div></footer>
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